what i want you to know about quitting facebook

What I Want You to Know is a seriesof
reader submissions. It is an attempt to allow people to tell their
personal stories, in the hopes of bringing greater compassion to the
unique issues each of us face. If you would like to submit a story to
this series, click here. Today’s guest posts is by Jessica.
Quit sounds so final... but really, that's what I
did. For the time being, it's just 'deactivated.' I can decide when I'm
ready to sign back in and all my photos and friends will still be there
with the same page, that was helpful in making the decision to quit.

The
events that lead to my decision aren't pretty, it's a lot of ugliness
and jealousy and coveting other people's lives. I know
these feelings aren't even close to what God desires for me.
I have great friends and a loving husband. I
have so much to be thankful for and the fact that I'm 27 and married for
almost five years with no children shouldn't be disheartening. The way
our life and marriage has played hasn't given us the opportunity to
start our family yet. We're close, very close actually... so close it's
scary that I'm struggling with this. I've been convicted
to deal with it straight-on. I've felt that quitting Facebook for the time being was a way that I can get practical in handling my issue. At
this point, my coveting has been other people's children and family. If
I don't deal with it now, after we have our family who knows what it
will be.

It's been about a week and a half so far. I still blog
and do twitter and instagram, but it's a lot more controlled. We live in
a different state than our immediate families, so it's been nice to
have the blog to keep them updated. If/when we do get pregnant, I'm sure
Facebook will resurface, but ideally on my terms and in a much
healthier way.

Here's what I want you to know: I don't think
Facebook is a bad thing. Personally, it went way further from a tool to
keep in touch with people. It went from 'just needing to send this one
person this one little message' to thirty minutes, I still haven't sent
them a message and I'm clicking around in my news feed. What I realized
is that those thirty minutes did a lot more damage that I had originally
thought.

I also want you to know that I didn't go 'rogue.' I
still have a lot of ways for people to keep in touch with me. My friends
have my phone number and email address and I tell them that's the best
way to get in touch with me.

This isn't meant to convict
other's, that's not my job. But if you do feel convicted, it could be time for you to try something similar. Feel free to get in touch with
me if it's something you'd like to know more about or want to talk
though. I'd love to hear your story too!